The Revenge Artist - Philip Siegel Page 0,6
am going to this dance with my girlfriend.”
My face turns red, and this time, I keep my sights set on my map-of-Italy place mat. Any tingling I feel about Fred’s declaration is offset by assessing what Val’s reaction is. “It’s not that fun,” I squeak out.
“I don’t care.” He drums the napkin dispenser with his fork, and it is adorable seeing him so excited. I’m sure he’d be a ton of fun at the dance, but it would still be the Snowflake Dance.
“Can you dance?” Val asks. “That is the question.”
“I’m not completely horrible.” He glances at me with a calzone-stuffed smile and launches into his pity face. “So, will you go with me?”
“Yes.” And then I shove a bite of calzone into my face, too.
“Excellent! And because we’re going together, tickets were only fifty dollars. They discount when you buy two. How cool is that?”
“So cool,” Val says.
Fred gulps down the last of his Coke and flashes me a smile of soon-to-be-rotting teeth. “I’m getting a refill. You ladies want me to refresh your drinks?”
“Such a gentleman.” Val slides her half-empty cup over, and I follow suit. “Diet Coke,” she tells him.
“Ditto,” I say.
He barely manages to pick up all three cups at once. The ice sloshes against the rim, and I feel like this can’t end well. He shoves his cup in his mouth while ours wobble in his fingers. I stand up to help.
“I got it, I got it.”
Once he’s firmly entrenched at the soda fountain, Val and I eat our food. Usually, we would lean in, set to talk shop. Not today. She smiles at me between bites, in a politely awkward, “Why are you watching me eat?” kind of way. This is where the third wheel issue rears its ugly head. In these silences, where she seems happy and is munching away and I can’t tell if that smile is a real smile or a coping mechanism.
“I think it’s obnoxious that they’re giving that discount,” I say.
“No. It makes sense.”
“In a bargain-basement-type way. I’m only going because Fred wants to go.”
“Is that the only reason you’re going?”
It’s a loaded question. If I answer yes, I’ll sound like a zombie doing whatever my boyfriend wants. If I answer no, then that means I do want to attend a dance with my boyfriend. I don’t think either is the right answer, so I take an extra-large bite and plead the fifth.
“He’s a good guy,” she says. Fred dutifully refills the last cup. “Everything going okay?”
“Yep. Things are good.” I refuse to squee and OMG over relationship details. I won’t do that to her. We go to a school where people are couple-crazy. I remember the frustration I used to feel being on the outside looking in. Friendships change when a guy enters the picture if you’re not careful. I, of course, am always careful.
“You know,” she says, tapping her crust against her plate. I steel myself, like I do whenever my mom or dad talk to me alone about “something important” in the car. “It’s still kind of strange to see you in a relationship.”
“Strange?” I barely squeak out the word.
“It’s just…it’s not something I thought I would see. You canoodling with a boyfriend.”
“But it’s a good strange, right?”
She takes her own bite of procrastination. My heart pounds in my ears.
“Things have definitely changed,” she finally says.
But they haven’t. I don’t want them to. I feel like my life has become a clump of sand slipping through my fist, no matter how tight I pull my fingers together.
***
On our drive back to school, Fred’s little ole Honda finds itself behind a red Mercedes convertible with a “Give peas a chance. Go veggie!” bumper sticker and a California license plate that says WADE2BE.
“It’s Mr. Hollywood.” Fred smirks to himself. I’m glad I don’t date a guy who would buy himself a vanity plate. Score one for good taste.
“Did you know he used to live across the street from Emma Stone? He showed our class pictures of them shopping at the farmers’ market together,” Val says. “Emma loves radishes. True story.”
Wade Benson hooks a sharp right into the school parking lot and swerves into one of the front spots. For someone who used to live in a city made for driving, Wade’s automotive skills fall somewhere between getaway car and DWI.
His freshly tanned skin beams against the crisp blue sky (probably tanning salon); his hair has flecks of blond interspersed among the brown. Wade zips up his jacket all